Agatha Christie Quotes

To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure.

[author's dedication]

At my time of life, one knows that the worst is usually true.

I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. 'The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life' That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains.

"You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"

It will not."

If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."

I, also M. Ratchett."

What's wrong with my proposition?"

Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.

"It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again."

"Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant."

Love can be a very frightening thing.’ ‘That is why most great love stories are tragedies.

Intuition is like reading a word without having to spell it out. A child can't do that because it has had so little experience. A grown-up person knows the word because they've seen it often before.

Hercule Poirot: I am an imbecile. I see only half of the picture.
Miss Lemon: I don't even see that.

It had come about ex­act­ly in the way things hap­pened in books.

You should employ your little grey cells

Sometimes I feel sure he is as mad as a hatter and then, just as he is at his maddest, I find there is a method in his madness.

Many homicidal lunatics are very quiet, unassuming people. Delightful fellows.

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

The amount of missing girls I've had to trace and their family and their friends always say the same thing. 'She was a bright and affectionate disposition and had no men friends'. That's never true. It's unnatural. Girls ought to have men friends. If not, then there's something wrong about them....

There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.